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AZ Bill Would Likely Prohibit Teachers From Teaching Any Book With ‘Profanity’

GOP Sens. Snowe And Collins Come Out In Favor Of Obama Contraception Rule

Green

Sen. Jeff Bingaman: Keystone XL ‘Sounds Meritorious’

By Brad Johnson posted from ThinkProgress Green on Feb 12, 2012 at 9:21 pm

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) with President Obama.

This week, the U.S. Senate is considering whether to add language forcing approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to major transportation legislation. In a C-SPAN interview on Friday, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the chair of the Senate energy committee, indicated his support for the construction of the risky project after sufficient environmental review. After agreeing with the Obama administration’s decision to require a full environmental review of the pipeline, Bingaman claimed that “the American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails,” calling it “meritorious”:

They shouldn’t be forced to issue a permit until they are satisfied on the environmental effects involved. So I think that point is valid. Whether that requires another six or eight months, that’s open to question. It is a good issue to try to get resolved some way or another. The American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails. It sounds meritorious. We’ve got pipelines all over the country. That is true with most members of Congress, too. I think most members of Congress probably would like to go ahead to get the issue resolved.

Watch it:

Bingaman’s claim about the American public’s support for the foreign tar sands project is incorrect. A recent poll from Hart Research Associates found that Americans who are informed about the pros and cons of the pipeline don’t want it built by a 14-point margin. Americans without this information — influenced by the extreme pro-pipeline bias in corporate media — support the pipeline by an 11-point margin.

Bingaman also rejected Republican claims that there is an “urgency about getting this permit approved,” because oil production is so high that the United States is a net exporter of petroleum products.

If built, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would put six states at risk of toxic oil spills along its 1700-mile route, and would add about five billion tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere over its intended 50-year lifespan of bringing dirty crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries for foreign export.

Other Democratic senators who have expressed support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline include finance chair Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), budget chair Kent Conrad (D-ND), Jon Tester (D-MT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mark Begich (D-AK), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Nelson and Baucus have criticized Republican attempts to speed approval, while Manchin has signed on with the GOP.

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Health

GOP Continues To Oppose Contraception Coverage Plan Now Supported By Large Catholic Institutions

By Amanda Peterson Beadle posted from ThinkProgress Health on Feb 12, 2012 at 11:50 am

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops almost immediately rejected a compromise on requiring contraception coverage that the Obama administration announced on Friday, and Republicans have continued to attack the accommodation. Under the compromise, religious institutions will not be required to provide contraceptive coverage because insurers will provide contraception directly to employees at no cost, completely removing religious institutions from the equation. But this deal was not enough to satisfy conservative opposition.

On ABC’s This Week, Rep. Paul Ryan echoed the Republican objection of contraception coverage. Ryan told host George Stephanopolous the compromise is nothing more than a “fig leaf” and an “accounting trick”:

RYAN: To paraphrase the bishops’ letter, this thing, it’s a distinction without a difference. It’s an accounting gimmick or a fig leaf. It’s not a compromise. The president’s doubled down. [...] If this is what the president’s willing to do in a tough election year, imagine what he’s going to do to implement the rest of his health care law after an election.

STEPHANOPOLOUS: You heard Jack Lew right there, this is not going to force the institutions to pay for the coverage. [...]

RYAN: It’s a distinction without a difference. This is an accounting trick.

Watch his interview:

Ryan’s own heavily-Catholic home state of Wisconsin currently mandates contraception coverage without any exclusion for religious institutions. As ThinkProgress reported, Marquette University, a Jesuit institution located in Milwaukee, even decided to offer contraception coverage prior to the state’s mandate.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew repeatedly defended President Obama’s decision on several Sunday morning TV shows. “It does not force an institution that has religious principle to offer or pay for benefits that they find objectionable, but it guarantees a women’s right to access,” Lew said on Fox News Sunday. “Hopefully now this will set the issue to rest.”

And Ryan and his Republican colleagues are arguing against a policy that a majority of Catholic voters support and that major Catholic organizations favor, including the Catholic Health Association, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and Catholic Charities USA. The Rev. John Jenkins, president of the Catholic-affiliated University of Notre Dame, supported President Obama’s compromise, calling it a “a welcome step toward recognizing the freedom of religious institutions to abide by the principles that define their respective missions.”

As Republicans stand with the conservative Catholic bishops in opposition to allowing women to receive contraception at no cost, they are embracing an increasingly extreme anti-contraception position, with which even many Catholics disagree.

Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Board Unanimously Condemned Gaffney’s ‘Reprehensible’ And ‘Unfounded’ Attacks

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 12, 2012 at 9:30 am

This is the first in a two-part series about the Islamaphobia network and CPAC.

Frank Gaffney and John Bolton, who condemned Gaffney in a unanimous ACU resolution

A year ago, anti-Sharia conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney leaned against a column in the basement of CPAC as he warned ThinkProgress about how Muslim extremists had infiltrated the annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington. It was that kind of conspiracy theorizing that made Gaffney unwelcome upstairs where the official panels and keynote speeches were held, as ThinkProgress first reported.

Gaffney’s attacks on conservative stalwarts like Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, and Suhail Khan, a Bush administration offical, as agents of the Muslim Brotherhood has made him a bit of a pariah among conservatives. David Keene, the then-chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which puts on CPAC, and the current head of the NRA, told ThinkProgress last year that Gaffney “has become personally and tiresomely obsessed with his weird belief that anyone who doesn’t agree with him…[must be] dupes of the nation’s enemies.”

This year, the ban on Gaffney’s official participation remained in effect, but he was able to purchase a side room at the conference through TeaParty.net, giving him unofficial but proximate access to the conference. Conservatives are hesitant to speak ill about each other in public, but a source close to CPAC told ThinkProgress that Gaffney, already on thin ice, made CPAC leadership “livid” by attacking Norquist during his panel Saturday.

The degree to which conservative leaders have tried to distance themselves from Gaffney and his Sharia conspiracy theories is especially apparent given two documents obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress.

Last September, the board of the ACU unanimously passed a resolution (read it here) condemning the “false and unfounded” attacks Gaffney had made against Norquist and Khan, both board members, after having another board member, Cleta Mitchell, look into Gaffney’s serious charges of sedition and abetting an enemy.

In a letter to the ACU board (read it here), Mitchell, a prominent and very conservative attorney, said she reviewed the “evidence” Gaffney presented (including a lengthy PowerPoiint presentation and DVDs smearing Norquist and Khan), and found Gaffney’s “ceaseless war” to be “reprehensible.” She wrote in the conclusion:

I have tried to talk Mr.Gaffney into ceasing these attacks – but to no avail. I have done everything I know to do to try and bring this to a halt, including private conversations and public appearances saying essentially what I have said in this letter. I have taken whatever official actions in my capacity as a board member of various organizations to vote against any motion that would support Mr. Gaffney’s allegations and will continue to do so.

Further, I will work to ensure that any organization with which I am involved will not b eallowed to be used as a platform to spread Mr. Gaffney’s baseless attacks.

The unanimous ACU board — which includes neoconservatives like U.N. ambassador John Bolton — endorsed the letter and resolved that Gaffney’s claims against Kahn and Norquist were “false and unfounded,” writing that the board “profoundly regrets and rejects as unwarranted the past and on-going attacks upon their patriotism and character.”

The board includes some of the most prominent conservative operatives and activists in the country (view a full list here, though Asa Hutchison and Carly Fiorina were not members at the time of the letter).

Gaffney is increasingly isolated by his fellow conservatives, yet his organization continues to receive funding from major mainstream conservative donors like the Bradley Foundation.

View the letter and resolution.

Economy

Indiana Senate Candidate: Obama Deserves All Blame For Bad Economy, No Credit For Its Improvement

By Travis Waldron and Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 11, 2012 at 1:13 pm

WASHINGTON, DC — Since President Obama took office in January 2009, Republicans have been quick to heap blame on him for every bit of poor economic news, no matter how large or small. In recent months, however, with jobs numbers improving and signs that the economy is rebounding becoming more evident, the same Republicans haven’t been as quick to praise the president.

Richard Mourdock, the insurgent Republican Senate candidate in Indiana who is locking in a primay contest against Sen. Richard Lugar (R), took a similar tack this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, telling ThinkProgress that while Obama’s policies were responsible for making the economy worse early in his term, the recent improvement has occurred in spite of Obama’s policies:

KEYES: If the economy does continue to improve over the next few months, is that something you’d be willing to give President Obama credit for, or not?

MOURDOCK: The American economy is incredibly resilient because Americans are incredibly resilient. It won’t be because of President Obama when we see recovery, it will be in spite of President Obama. He wants to add more and more layers of government, more and more government sector unions. Those are killing our economy. And while it’s possible we might see some recovery, it would be doing a whole lot more if we were rolling back the size of government.

Watch it:

The Mourdock stance is common in the GOP — presidential candidate Mitt Romney took a similar view following the January jobs report, as did House Speaker John Boehner.

The facts, however, tell a different story. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, despite Republican claims, has been a success, and since its implementation, the economy has added jobs for 23 consecutive months. The auto bailout, another favorite Republican target, has also worked, saving thousands of jobs and returning American automakers to profitability for the first time in a decade.

If anything, the economy is improving in spite of the best efforts of the Republicans Mourdock is trying to join in Congress. Republicans have targeted positive economic programs that benefit the less fortunate — like food stamps and unemployment insurance — for spending cuts, all while blocking other Obama proposals — like the American Jobs Act — that experts say would have had a positive effect on the nation’s economic recovery.

Politics

Who Is Foster Friess? Seven Facts You Need To Know

By Adam Peck on Feb 11, 2012 at 11:00 am

Foster Friess, the multi-millionaire financial investor who—until recently—was practically single-handedly bankrolling Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, has a long history supporting Republican candidates and conservative causes. And unlike some of his fellow mega-donors like the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson, Friess has never tried all that hard to hide his intentions or methods.

On his personal YouTube page, more than a dozen sparsely-viewed videos show Friess discussing his philanthropic endeavors as well as his thoughts on President Obama, health care reform and the cause of the economic crisis. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting things about Friess that you may not know:

1. He has a long history funding Islamophobic organizations. One of Friess’ biggest beneficiaries is a collection of some of the largest Islamophobic organizations in the country, including Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and David Horowitz’s Terrorism Awareness Project.

2. He filmed an introduction video to Clarion Fund’s Islamophobic “Obsession” Documentary. The controversy and outrage over the film “Obsession” has been well documented, but that didn’t seem to faze Friess, who filmed a five and a half minute promotional video in which he encouraged viewers to purchase the full DVD and use it “as a voting guide when you go into the election booth on election day.”

3. He preached intolerance in a commencement speech at the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University. “Be more intolerant,” urged Friess to a room full of graduating students in 2007. “There’s a group of people—maybe the secular Taliban is a good name for them—who have morphed this idea, that you have to accept my values being every bit as cherished as your values. That’s not tolerance…there are too many things in this world which we sit back and tolerate.”

4. Friess has given A LOT to Republican politicians. Rick Santorum’s not the only beneficiary of Friess’ campaign contributions. Over the years, Friess has contributed millions of dollars to Republican candidates and committees across the country, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas Governor Rick Perry. Perry’s also not the only former Santorum competitor who cashed big checks from Friess. Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign has received $5,000 from Lynette and Foster, Mitt Romney received $1,000 for this election (and the campaign maximum $4,600 from both Friess’s in 2007) and even Tim Pawlenty’s presidential exploratory committee deposited a cool $5,000. Talk about hedging your bets.

5. Friess donated to gay rights advocate, former Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato. And not just a few thousand dollars either. In the mid-1990s, Friess funneled over $260,000 to committees with ties to the former New York senator, who famously bucked his party on LGBT issues and voted against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 1993 and for the Employee Non Discrimination Act. Granted, the donations were more likely contributed as a way to protect his own business interests than actual gay rights, but D’Amato is a strange bedfellow for someone supporting a candidate who compared homosexuality to man-on-dog sex.

6. He was a founding donor to conservative news site The Daily Caller. A $3 million initial investment into Tucker Carlson’s news site in early 2010 helped it get off the ground. He’s since made at least one additional contribution of $500,000. Yet as POLITICO notes, The Daily Caller has thus far failed to disclose its connection to Rick Santorum when covering him on the campaign trail.

7. Claimed liberals were to blame for Columbine shooting. In a speech delivered at the Metropolitan Club in New York City in 2002, Friess tried to pin the blame for 1999′s Columbine school shooting on liberals. “How hard have those intolerant of John Adam’s perspective worked to strip from young people any hope of knowing the concepts and truths that help deal with life…They have gone to great lengths to strip all of this away and we have sat back in the name of tolerance while our youth were robbed of these truths and proven tools. I think we should be encouraged to learn from Columbine and let it be a battle cry for all of us so that we may change our society through productive intolerance.”

Politics

Romney For Sale: Mitt Hosts $10K ‘Policy Roundtables’

By Josh Israel on Feb 11, 2012 at 9:20 am

Giving a preview of how he would govern as president, Mitt Romney hosted a series of “policy roundtables” with top dollar donors Thursday at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, DC. Once again demonstrating that he is much more concerned with helping the very rich than the very poor, the panels were open to all interested parties — who were willing and able to raise $10,000 for his campaign, each.

The roundtable topics included education, energy, financial institutions and markets, defense/homeland security/foreign policy, health care, and infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, the panels were chaired and hosted by a few prominent Republican politicians and several wealthy investors and industry insiders. They roundtable leaders and industry finance chairs included:

– L.E. Simmons (energy), who has has “guided the investment of over $1.6 billion in private equity capital used to build energy service and equipment companies.”

– Patrick Durkin, managing director of Barclay’s Capital and a top Romney lobbyist-bundler.

– Richard Breeden, a hedge fund manager and a former SEC chairman under President George H. W. Bush.

– Tom Farrell, president and CEO of Dominion Power.

– Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) (infrastructure), now a “distinguished fellow” at the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

– Former HHS Secretary and ex-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R), now head of a “health care intelligence business.”

If the number $10,000 seems familiar, perhaps it was because he offered to make a bet with then-primary opponent Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) for that amount in a disagreement over his previous positions on federal health insurance mandates. Now, Romney is asking the wealthiest 1 percent to make a similar-sized bet on him. And, according to one of the event’s co-chairs, the event raised $1.5 million for Romney’s campaign.

Politics

Former Michigan GOP Chairman Rebukes Hoekstra Xenophobic China Ad As ‘Dumb’ And In ‘Bad Taste’

By Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron on Feb 11, 2012 at 8:36 am

Pete Hoekstra

WASHINGTON, DC — Former Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis joined the chorus of criticism against fellow Republican Pete Hoekstra’s recent advertisement that has been roundly criticized as xenophobic and racially insensitive.

Hoekstra’s ad, which aired during the Super Bowl last weekend, featured an Asian woman in a rice paddy in China — the scene was actually shot in California — speaking broken English and thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” Hoesktra is currently running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat. Watch the ad here.

ThinkProgress spoke with Anuzis at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday about the ad. Anuzis spared few punches, calling the ad “dumb” and in “bad taste.”

KEYES: There’s been a bit of a controversy this week with this new ad. What’s your take? Do you think it was in poor taste?

ANUZIS: I’m not too worried about the poor taste, I just think it was a dumb ad. Pete Hoekstra voted to raise taxes, Pete Hoekstra voted for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” Pete Hoekstra voted five times to increase the debt ceiling, and then he goes out and leads with his chin by saying, “I’m against Debbie Stabenow because she sold all of our debt to China.” Well, he voted for that debt. [...]

KEYES: A lot of people have said this borderlines on racial insensitivity. Do you think you would agree with that?

ANUZIS: At best it was in bad taste. It’s not something I would have done. But I’m not too worried about that as much as the issues that are behind that. I think the beauty of this ad is the hypocrisy that Pete Hoekstra is trying to go after Debbie Stabenow for spending when he voted the same way.

Anuzis also called out Hoekstra for his “hypocrisy” in voting for many of the proposals that increased the very debt discussed in the ‘China’ ad.

Though Hoekstra originally unveiled the ad on the website www.debbiespenditnow.com, a major backlash ensued and he took down the site yesterday, now redirecting visitors to his campaign website. The ad itself is still live on Youtube, however.

His Republican primary opponent, Clark Durant, released a response ad this week, criticizing Hoekstra’s ad as “demeaning.”

Health

GOP Ups The Ante, Introduces Legislation To Allow Any Employer To Deny Any Preventive Health Service

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Health on Feb 10, 2012 at 7:00 pm

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

Earlier today, in response to criticism from Catholic groups, the White House altered its regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide no-cost contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. Churches and religious nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith are still exempt from the requirement, but now religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals that wish to avoid providing birth control can do so. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

(6) RESPECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE WITH REGARD TO SPECIFIC ITEMS OR SERVICES —

“(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS. — A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Services Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because —

“(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or

“(ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

Read the full amendment here.

Economy

Hundreds Of Protesters March To Conservative Action Conference To ‘Occupy CPAC’

By Travis Waldron and Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 10, 2012 at 6:30 pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of protesters, chanting “We are the 99 percent” and waving signs decrying corporate tax dodging and other issues, marched in front of the Marriott Wardman hotel in Woodley Park, the site of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, this afternoon.

Occupy CPAC, as protesters dubbed it, featured a giant inflatable “corporate fat cat,” and four protesters were dressed in blue and white baseball uniforms (resembling those of the Los Angeles Dodgers) that read “Tax Dodgers,” a reference to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. For more than a half hour, the protesters chanted and marched outside the hotel.

View pictures of the protest:



Many of the conference’s attendees ventured out of the hotel to watch the protests, and as protesters chanted “We are the 99 percent!” one attendee screamed back, “No, you are the bottom one percent!” Others stood around laughing, while one looked to another attendee and said, “G–damn Occupiers. F–k those guys. This is America.”

As a group of protesters attempted to move up the hotel’s driveway toward the entrance, police blocked them and threatened them with arrest for violating public property rights. At that point, members of the media covering CPAC who had gone outside to cover the protest were also forced back into the hotel with threats of arrest. According to one organizer affiliated with the march, roughly 500 protesters participated in the march.

Security

Santorum: Women Are Capable Of ‘Flying Small Planes’

By Eli Clifton posted from ThinkProgress Security on Feb 10, 2012 at 5:40 pm

The Pentagon announcement easing the ban on women serving in combat led Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to express his concerns that missions could be put in jeopardy “because of other types of emotions that are involved.”

But today, Santorum attempted to clarify his seemingly sexist statement in an interview with ABC News:

RICK SANTORUM: I was talking about men’s emotional issues, not women. That’s something I’ve talked about repeatedly. [...] Men in our culture are focused on if a woman is in trouble, obviously, to react to try to help to protect and care for that person. That is something that is built in culturally. So my concern is that being in combat in that situation, instead of being focused on the mission, they might be more concerned about protecting a woman in a vulnerable position.

Watch it:

Having put to rest the allegation that he was suggesting women were emotionally unfit to serve in combat — and instead having argued that men are emotionally unfit to serve alongside women — Santorum went on to emphasize that he has no problem putting women’s lives in danger.

Blogger Jennifer Rubin describes her interview with Santorum:

He says, “It’s not a matter of putting women in dangerous roles.” He tell[s] me, for example, that women are fully capable of “flying small planes.”

So it seems that for Santorum, it’s okay for women to fly the puddle jumpers but save the heavy bombers for the men. While Rubin goes on to commend Santorum for his fearlessness in “refusing to censor his views” and possibly “provoking the ire of women,” his views on women in the military may pose a challenge for his campaign which finds itself in the media spotlight after primary victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

In the past 24 hours, Santorum: accused Obama of helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons; suggested that male soldiers are incapable of controlling their emotions around female comrades in combat; and said women are better suited to “flying small planes.”

Economy

Facebook’s Initial Stock Offering Will Help It Dodge Corporate Income Taxes For Years

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 10, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Back in 2008, Google seemed to have set the standard for tech corporation tax dodging, using complex accounting and subsidiaries in Ireland and Bermuda to drives its tax rate all the way down to 2.4 percent. But if all goes according to plan, Facebook will be able to use its initial public offering — via the stock options it gives its employees — to not only avoid paying corporate income tax for years, but to receive a $500 million refund from the federal government, as Citizens for Tax Justice explained:

Tax law says that if a corporation issues options for employees to buy the company’s stock in the future for its price when the option issued, then if the stock has gone up in value when employees exercise the options, the company gets to deduct the difference between what the employee bought it for and its market price.

When, as Facebook expects, the 187 million stock options are cashed in this year, Facebook will get $7.5 billion in tax deductions (which will reduce the company’s federal and state taxes by $3 billion). According to Facebook, these tax deductions should exceed the company’s U.S. taxable 2012 income and result in a net operating loss (NOL) that can then be carried back to the preceding two years to offset its past taxes, resulting in a refund of up to $500 million.

Facebook’s filing papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirm as much:

Option exercise activity would generate a corporate income tax deduction [that] exceeds our other U.S. taxable income [and] will result in a net operating loss (NOL) that can be carried back to the preceding two years to offset our taxable income for U.S. federal income tax purposes, as well as in some states, which would allow us to receive a refund of some of the corporate income taxes we paid in those years. Based on the assumptions above, we anticipate that this refund could be up to $500 million.

“Due to the stock option loophole, Facebook may not pay any corporate income taxes on its profits for a generation,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). “It isn’t right, and we can’t afford it.” The Treasury Department estimates that it loses about $2 billion per year due to companies using this stock option loophole to avoid taxes.

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Climate Progress

While Digging Up 1,235 Acres For His Golf Course, Donald Trump Says Wind Farms Are ‘Destroying’ Scotland

By Stephen Lacey posted from Climate Progress on Feb 10, 2012 at 4:00 pm

A bulldozer flattens out coastal sand dunes to make way for Donald Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Trump says the Scottish First Minister is "hellbent on destroying the Scottish coastline."

Real estate mogul and former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has outdone himself this time.

After starting construction on a 1,235 acre coastal golf course on rural land in Scotland that will feature two golf courses, 950 houses and a luxury hotel, Trump is now complaining that the Scottish Minister is “hell-bent on destroying Scotland’s coastline” with offshore wind projects.

Last summer, Trump vowed to fight an 11-turbine offshore wind project proposed for waters 1.5 miles away from his sprawling complex where bulldozers have been ripping up untouched grasses and flattening coastal sand dunes to make way for an artificial golf course.

In a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond sent this week, Trump hilariously says he will try to “save Scotland” (yes, really) from the plight of wind turbines being proposed for the country’s coastline:

“With the reckless installation of these monsters, you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history.”

Trump also said he would never be “on board” with the project, which he called “insanity”.

He added: “As a matter of fact, I have just authorised my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland’s coast with many thousands of wind turbines.”

He added: “Please understand that I am doing this to save Scotland.”

One Scottish politician called Trump’s comments “desperate” and “embarrassing” — perhaps two of the biggest understatements of the year so far.

Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly” and then billed him for half the costs!

Yes, this is coming from a man who ran for U.S. president, and who now sees himself as a serious candidate for Secretary of State in order to “be in a position to negotiate against some of these countries.”

Trump has not signaled what his negotiating strategy would be. But if history is any guide, it will likely involve sending hypocritical letters to countries threatening his pet projects.

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Media

REPORT: By A Nearly 2 To 1 Margin, Cable Networks Call On Men Over Women To Comment On Birth Control

By Faiz Shakir and Adam Peck on Feb 10, 2012 at 3:00 pm

TP interns Zachary Bernstein and Fatima Najiy conducted the research for this report.

President Obama’s regulation mandating that health insurance plans offer free birth control is an issue that most directly affects women. And yet, the cable news chatter over this controversy has been driven mostly by men, according to a new ThinkProgress analysis.

From Monday through Thursday evening, the leading cable news channels – Fox, Fox Business, MSNBC, and CNN – invited almost twice as many men as women onto their shows to discuss contraceptive coverage.

Out of a total of 146 guests who discussed contraception, the cables invited 91 men compared to 55 women as commentators. In other words, males comprised 62 percent of the total guests who commented on contraception. Fox was the most gender stratified network – on the Business network, 10 of 11 guests were male; on the News side, male pundits took up 65 percent of the guest lineup (28 men vs. 15 women). Sixty percent of MSNBC’s lineup was male (44 men vs. 31 women). And while CNN was more evenly balanced, it was still slightly tilted in favor of male perspectives (9 men vs. 8 women).

A note on methodology: The survey did not include male or female hosts of shows who happened to comment on the controversy. Some guests, like Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), appeared more than once during this stretch, but on different programs and networks. Each appearance was counted separately.

Contraceptive coverage is an issue where female perspectives should be heeded and understood. When it comes to contraceptive coverage, adding women’s voices on everything from their experiences with insurers to the decision’s impact on women voters can only make for a richer conversation. Hopefully, those individuals responsible for booking television guests will be more cognizant of gender sensitivities going forward.

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Health

House Republican Leader Price: ‘There’s Not One Woman’ Who Doesn’t Have Access To Birth Control

By Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Health on Feb 10, 2012 at 2:31 pm

WASHINGTON, DC — Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) shed his usual placid demeanor when discussing birth control for low-income women on Friday, telling ThinkProgress that “not one” woman doesn’t have access to contraception in the United States.

Price, who serves as the fifth ranking Republican in the House, made the comments to ThinkProgress this morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. Like virtually all Republicans in Congress, he opposes the recent Obama administration rule requiring employers and insurers to offer birth control at no cost.

We asked Price, who is a medical doctor by trade, what he would say to low-income women who can’t afford birth control if it’s not covered by their insurance policies. Price responded by denying their very existence. “Bring me one woman who has been left behind,” he demanded. “Bring me one. There’s not one”:

KEYES: Obviously one of the main sticking points is whether or not contraception coverage is going to be covered health insurance plans and at hospitals and whether or not they’re going to be able to pay for it, especially for low-income women. Where do we leave these women if this rule is rescinded?

PRICE: Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one. The fact of the matter is, this is a trampling of religious freedom and religious liberty in this country. The president does not have the power to say that your First Amendment rights go away. That’s wrong.

In fact, there are tens of millions of women in the United States who have struggled to afford or don’t have access to contraception. A recent Hart Research survey found that one in three women voters have struggled to afford prescription birth control, including 55 percent of young women aged 18 to 34.

Fortunately, the Obama administration has moved to help these women by requiring insurers to provide birth control at no charge, a move that Price vehemently opposes.

Update

Commenter Amber French is just one of the women that Price claims do not exist. She writes: “Before I found a good gynecologist that was willing to take my financial situation into consideration (college student, minimal work income, zero insurance), my medically necessary birth control was $50/mo. I definitely was unable to afford it, and I know tons of other ladies in similar boats.”

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Green

Santorum Froths At CPAC About ‘Facade Of Man-Made Global Warming’

By Brad Johnson posted from ThinkProgress Green on Feb 10, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Rick Santorum, who scored several wins this week in the Republican presidential race, told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC this morning that climate change is a leftist scientific conspiracy to destroy America. He railed that the “facade of man-made global warming” might convince people with the “sentimentality” to be “stewards of this earth” to think there should be limits on the burning of fossil fuels:

One of the favorite things of the left is to use your sentimentality, and your proper understanding and belief that we are stewards of this earth and we have a responsibility to hand off a beautiful earth to the next generation. They use that and they have used it in the past to try to scare you into supporting radical ideas on the environment. They tried it with this idea, this politicization of science called man-made global warming. President Obama, you may remember, tried to pass cap-and-trade and tried to get control not only of the health care system but of the energy industry, the manufacturing industry, another two big sectors of this economy, and using this facade of man-made global warming. I stood up and fought against those things. Why? because they will destroy the very foundation of prosperity in our country.

Watch it:

Santorum argued that his public embrace of the radical conspiracy theory that the world’s scientific community has concocted the greenhouse effect to enable socialists to take over the fossil fuel industry will help him win the White House.

“They try to scare you and intimidate you to trust them and give them more power,” Santorum concluded. “We need somebody who is willing to go out on these big issues of the day and draw contrasts.”

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Politics

Mitt Romney Legitimizing White Nationalists By Speaking At CPAC Today

By Guest Blogger on Feb 10, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Our guest blogger is Daniella Gibbs Leger, Vice President for New American Communities Initiatives at the Center for American Progress.

Peter Brimelow

Today, GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich will kiss the ring of CPAC, the annual gathering of hundreds of conservative activists in Washington, DC. This is a must-do pilgrimage for anyone running for president on the GOP ticket; in fact this is where Romney ended his 2008 campaign. There are usually a host of controversial panelists and topics, but this year they’ve outdone themselves.

As noted by PFAW, this year, among the participants in the conference is Peter Brimelow and Robert Vandervoort. Brimelow is the founder and head of the White Nationalist hate website VDARE, a site known for publishing the works of racist and anti-Semitic authors. Robert Vandervoort is the director of ProEnglish, an English-only group, and is a former leader of the White Nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance.

These aren’t just your average conservative activists. They have actively pushed the idea that our diversity is killing us, that Jews are destroying the American white majority, and that non-white immigrants are the cause for our economic problems.

We’ve already seen a GOP more than willing to use racially-coded language throughout the primary season. But is presumed front runner Romney really going to appear at the same conference as people who spew such hatred towards people of color and ethnic minorities? If he wants to be the president of ALL Americans and not just white Americans, Mitt Romney should refuse to speak today. And if he feels he must go on stage, then he needs to denounce Brimelow and Vanervoort’s odious beliefs from the stage. Anything less is tantamount to agreeing with what they say.

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Economy

Gov. Scott Walker To Use Foreclosure Settlement Money To Balance His Budget, Not Help Homeowners

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 10, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Yesterday, 49 states joined the federal government in announcing a $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks over the banks’ foreclosure fraud abuses. The money from the settlement is meant to aid homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure or who find themselves underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth.

However, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) — whose high profile assault on workers’ rights has prompted a recall effort against him — isn’t planning to use the money to help homeowners. Under the terms of the settlement, Wisconsin is set to receive $140 million, $31.6 million of which comes directly to the state government. And Walker is planning to use $25.6 million of that money to help balance his state’s budget:

Of a $31.6 million payment coming directly to the state government, most of that money – $25.6 million – will go to help close a budget shortfall revealed in newly released state projections. [Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen], whose office said he has the legal authority over the money, made the decision in consultation with Walker.

“Just like communities and individuals have been affected, the foreclosure crisis has had an effect on the state of Wisconsin, in terms of unemployment. … This will offset that damage done to the state of Wisconsin,” Walker said.

A memo from Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau released yesterday notes “it is anticipated that Wisconsin will receive $31.6 million. Based on discussions between the Attorney General and the administration, of the amounts received by the state, $25.6 million will be deposited to the general fund as GPR-Earned in 2011-12, and the remaining $6 million will be retained by the Department of Justice to be allocated at a later date.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) criticized Walker’s move, saying “not one dime [of the settlement] should be used to fund the unbalanced state budget.” Adding insult to injury, Walker has previously criticized using one-time settlement money to fill budget holes.

The settlement money already doesn’t come close to addressing the depths of the nation’s housing problem, though it will provide real relief to the people whom it does reach. But the money was certainly not intended to paper over state budget problems, particularly in a state whose governor assured everybody up and down that busting his state’s public unions was the key to fiscal solvency. (HT: Jessica Arp)

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